the psn is down. maybe you’ve heard of this? it’s just been in the news several thousand times. from gamer to politician, everyone just has their knickers in a twist over this whole issue. if it isn’t bitching and complaining about the lack of online games, they’re banging on about their personal information being stolen.

we live in a day and age where NO ONE guards their privacy. clerks try asking for your postal code and phone number when you’re out shopping. ten people ahead of me in a line don’t even blink when asked for this info, but i become the bitch for refusing. you need my postal code so i can buy leather gloves? no, go fuck yourself.

almost everything requires a credit card, to ‘verify it’. hotel rooms, dinner reservations, online shopping, renting anything – do you know you can’t make a facebook app without a credit card or mobile phone number? what a load of horse shit!

privacy… being violated… and we are all pointing the finger at sony? not quite fair.

guess what? sony, like a lot of other companies, isn’t immune to hacking. or theft. best buy got hacked. that was pretty recent, but there is NO industry that is safe. this is the world we live in. this is the price we pay for things at our fingertips. tech, finance, government. a few years ago, even the super bowl stadium site got hacked.

little_nerdxo and i have been working our way through the new lego star wars. we can’t sync the trophies, but i wouldn’t trade the time we spent together for anything. captainadventure, who is more of an online player than i am, is using her time to catch up on trophies.

personally, i’d actually argue that i like the break. i’m playing the sims almost non-stop [hence the lack of blogging, which has also been nice]. i’ve been spending more time with friends on patios, going for car rides, and just generally enjoying the spring time in toronto.

i love my playstation. this is just a rough patch. the ps3 is an international free service. it’s got a great selection of games. it’s my lifeline, as evidenced a few weeks ago. i can play my old ps2 games on it. it cures cancer, for fuck’s sake. are we truly going to kick it when it’s down?

i’m not a total fan girl. could sony have done more? probably. i am not pretending that they’re innocent but i also don’t know the full side of the story. if anything, it comes down to a 50/50 scenario. big business has a responsibility, but why are we going gently into the good night? consumers, like it or not, also have a certain responsibility. it’s kind of like the adult equivalent of ‘don’t talk to strangers’. don’t fuck a guy who doesn’t wear a condom. don’t download every goddamn thing you see online.

golden rule of this digital age? don’t give out your credit card to everyone who asks. a credit card is not some kind of magical, bullet-proof vest.

so. sony and geohotz have kind of made up. as much as i hate to say it, it seems like microsoft has come out winning [no one tell crazy chuck i used that word] in this battle. they didn’t bat an eye when someone hacked their shit. mind you, it was for blind kids and this was just some cute and clever hacker doing what he wanted to do because he could.

if you ask me anything, sony should be falling all over themselves trying to hire this guy.

atomicgamer.com has a great story about ps3 hacks and specifically the technology behind it. it’s kind of an older story, but it highlights exactly the reasons why sony is kind of in shit over this whole hacking business. this is a summary, but please read the full story for the juicy details.

It’s possible, even probable, that Sony won’t be able to keep hackers and cheaters off of PSN. The 360 can by way of a permanent ban of a specific console and is only possible due to unique console IDs hard-wired in, but rumor has it that these can be changed on the PS3. Depending on how Sony set up that security, it might be impossible to stop people from logging on with a new ID every time.

oh sony. you’re a mysterious bastard, aren’t you? you were all ‘omg playstation phone’ in 2007. ah, 2007. back when harry potter and the urgent need of an editor series finally, mercifully wrapped up. let’s not forget the big baseball steroid scandal. a lot of shit went down.

sigh. memory lane. you teased consumers, dear sony, about the possibility of a phone that would match the appetites of gamers everywhere. did you laugh, sony, when gamers across the world frothed at the mouth at what such a device could do for their lives? how it would enrich them, perhaps?

then you released the psp go. i can still hear crickets. psp go home!

the telegraph has discovered that despite being so goddamn long in the making, a sony playstation phone seems to be a real possibility. engadget has some pictures of it too, along with some more detail.

what do we think? are we excited? i don’t know, to be honest. i would probably give a try, given the dismal state my blackberry is in. then again, this might just be a unicorn and they’re not really useful as a handset.

bonnie tyler, you may be holding out for a hero, but i’m sticking to camp iphone so far.

shit yo, i would not want to work at sony after this. the US military does not fuck around. as we all probably know, the ps3 used to be able to run linux. that and the cell processor in the earlier ps3 models made for some awesome computing power. how? well, you could bundle consoles together in a batch of 8 and have a super computer, but without the super price tag. researchers, scientists, and other other dorks around the world were free to run complex algorithms, solve difficult equations and more fabulous things. in short, they were improving the world. apparently, they were also used in batches of 16 consoles wired together. various universities did this, using it for everything from cancer research to late-night game sessions. nowgamer.com brings us an additional bit of news: even the american military was using it:

Last year the Air Force bought 336 PlayStation 3s, wiring them together on metal racks at a lab in New York state and, one presumes after a kick-ass local game of MAG, put them to work. That was just a test. A few months ago, satisfied that the idea worked according to projections, they spent $663,000 of their Department of Defense budget on 1,700 more PS3s to create a terrifying hive mind, brooding on god-knows-what sinister predictions, calculations or simulations. They were happy; they like scary things. Shortly afterwards, Sony disabled the PS3’s ability to run anything but games.

military or not, i see their point. i would be pissed too if i invested almost a million dollars in something, only to have some corporation come along and fuck it up. sony negated the initial investment and they let down the consumer. linux was a selling feature, for christ’s sake. now i kind of get why sony disabled it; it was, ostensibly, to stop pirates and hackers. however, all that it ultimately achieved was that it robbed everyone of the chance to play with technology. not many people play with linux, but on the ps3 you could easily partition part of your console and goof around with it. it seemed to make even further sense from a media server perspective.

on the plus side, nowgamer.com adds this about the american air force:

The USAF can keep running what they have, without the firmware update, but any repaired or replaced machines will be useless. The project cannot be sustained; hardware fails.

bottom line though, this is the air force we are talking about. those guys do NOT fuck around, and we all know what happens when you piss off the military. next thing you know, we’ll be hearing sony HQ got raided for weapons of mass production, or the possibility of oil in their cubicles.

kind of an older story, but definitely a good one. i’ve been holding on to this in the hopes something concrete develops, but for now it seems that it’s just as is. i have been saying for some time now that sony should get off their high horse and do something, but alas, they’ve got better things to do. shockingly, it is microsoft who has done something useful, specifically in the realm of mobile gaming. this is historical in many ways. i quit my job there because it sucked so much, but occasionally something comes out, like this, that makes me wish i had stuck around. oh well.

indeed, you will be able to get xbox live on your windows 7-enabled phone. here’s what a guy from gizmondo had to say for msnbc:

There’s your avatar waiting to greet you. There’s the last achievement you unlocked, whether it was on your console or the phone. This is where you see game invites from friends, games you’ve downloaded. There’s a Spotlight area that wasn’t up and running yet on the handset I saw, but it serves the same purpose it does on your console. It’s Xbox Live on your phone, as promised.

There are also some clever ways Microsoft has optimized the experience for mobile. Your 3D avatar will get dizzy and fall down if you shake the phone, and if you unlock an avatar item on Xbox Live anywhere it’s usable on the phone. And your avatar can invade the rest of your phone, too, with Avatar Gadgets, which are simple productivity apps like a flashlight, coin toss, ruler, and leveler that your avatar interacts with on screen.

keep reading, if you’re an average person. if you’ve got any clout at sony, stop reading and go get your shit together.

are you tired of hearing snarky comments about sony’s move? i am. microsoft kinect? wtf? xbox fanboys are frothing at the mouth over it, but why? it’s more expensive than sony’s efforts and frankly seems to be far more boring. i may get the move, but i gotta say that i’m going to finish the stack of games they bombarded us with the last few years. what i really like is that i can integrate it into my life, later. today, just for fun, i am going to rip apart microsoft fucking kinect. and then let’s do everyone a favour and drop it, mmkay?

sony move vs microsoft kinect

product smackdown

even the name of the product fails. playstation move: very obvious what it does. even if you may not be sure what it does, you know one thing: something will move. in a good way, of course.

microsoft kinect? sounds like a program for illiteracy. ‘the bill and melinda gates foundation are, like, wicked stoked to announce the launch of microsoft kinect. it’s a program that will teach children to read so they can speak good and stuff.’

games

a lot saddens me about kinect games. not only did they choose all of the most unimaginative, boring adjectives possible, but then they started to make up their own. let’s examine a sampling of games:

Kinectimals: i shit you not. probably the best you will find, if you think petting a cartoon tiger in a video game is fun. then again, it’s marginally more exciting than their other offerings.

The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout: i strongly suspect that this is more a hilarious in-joke at microsoft regarding their consumer base than an actual game.

Kinect Joy Ride: ‘unsuitable product name? oh please, like anyone will object to children being taught the finer points of hotwiring a car. the fingers of children are so nimble. this is the perfect activity for an impressionable child… ok, if emma from marketing ACTUALLY has a problem with this name, she can kiss my ass. ever since she and tom had that baby she’s turned into SUCH a killjoy.’

MotionSports: ‘lol steve from creative got called into a meeting and then went home. guess we’ll have to think up a name ourselves.’

playstation move games? let’s see…

killzone 3

zumba fitness

littlebigplanet 2

nba 2k11

pricepoints

playstation move? needs the playstation eye ($40) and a controller ($50). games are going to be $40. plus you apparently don’t really need the other controller; you can use the regular one.

kinect? well, microsoft carries on their proud tradition of gouging people for their products. assuming you have a fully-stocked xbox 360 [for which you paid way more than a ps3 owner would have for a comparable system], your price tag is: $150. it comes bundled with a game, but every game after that is $60. bitch, PLEASE. who comes up with this shit?

ultimately, the kinect has one advantage: it doesn’t need a controller. you’re it. and if that little novelty will win you over, then go for it. otherwise, stop bitching and let people enjoy what they want.